LUNAR (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

Six. Coworkers.

Evelyn hadn't expected to feel so nervous about her first day of work. She had changed her clothes at least three times that morning and still wasn't sure she had made the right decision. Too late now. She had arrived just a minute ago and was now walking across the large open room of the main library towards where she remembered the door to the children's section to be. She took a deep breath, hiked her bag up her shoulder, and turned in.

Margaret was already there and sitting in her office behind a very messy desk piled high with picture books and construction paper and all kinds of other odds and ends. She had about as much hair as Evelyn did, which was to say a lot, but Margaret's was dark brown and very curly. Her outfit was very colorful.

"Oh, good morning," she said brightly when Evelyn approached. Then, stifling a yawn, she added, "Just give me one moment."

"Sure," said Evelyn, standing just inside the doorway. She looked around at the walls. Every inch of them was covered, it seemed, mostly by art, but there were photographs sprinkled in. Fairy lights lined the ceiling. She got the impression that Margaret felt at home where it was cluttered and busy.

"Sorry about that," she said, jumping up from her desk. She came right around to where Evelyn stood and gave her a big hug, rather than a handshake. "Good to see you again," she said. "I'm so looking forward to this. You have no idea. I never speak to adults."

Evelyn laughed. "I'm excited, too," she said. Her nerves hadn't quite deteriorated yet, but could she could feel them slipping. Margaret didn't seem to be the intimidating boss type.

"So I figured I'd show you around, talk you through a sort of typical day, if we really have a typical day, and probably by then, the kids'll be coming in for morning story hour. I'll just have you watch everything today, but eventually, you can start to take over certain things or we'll tag team it, depending on the event. Sound good?"

"Yeah," said Evelyn. Margaret talked a mile a minute.

"Great! So obviously this is the main children's section. We've got the stage up there which is fun sometimes and sometimes it's very not fun. And then the major book collection, obviously. All kid-level shelving, which means we have a lot of overflow inventory..." She paused and opened the door next to her office. "So we keep all that in here." This room had much, much higher shelves, too high even for a very tall man to have reached the top without a ladder or perhaps a broomstick.

"Out there, I keep new books, favorites, seasonal books.... That sort of thing. And then everything else is in here. So you'll definitely spend a lot of time pulling things when kids request books on a certain topic that isn't out in the main library."

"Got it," said Evelyn.

"But don't worry. I'll teach you the whole system when we have a little more time today. The three-second overview is that all the middle grade and young adult is on this back wall," she said motioning to the wall opposite the door. And then we've got thin chapter books along this side, early readers over there on the left, and this whole center section is picture books."

"Okay," said Evelyn with a nod, trying to take all this in. She tucked her hair behind her ear and followed Margaret back out and then into a door along the adjoining wall.

"In here is where we do craft projects, birthday parties... anything that might be too noisy and carry out into the main library. Sometimes we have mazoologists come in and show the kids a few creatures and we usually set that all up in here."

"Oh that's fun," said Evelyn.

"The kids get a kick out of it," said Margaret. She led her back out and into one last door to the right of the one they had just come out of. "So in here, we've got all kinds of storage. Lots of craft supplies, sensory bins... props and costumes for stuff on the stage... extra toys, because we switch out the ones in the playroom. Which..." She paused and led Evelyn all the way across the room to the last door, propped open already. "Is over here. We don't do much supervising in here because it's just kids and their parents usually who come in and play for a while before they check out books. But I usually stop in once or twice a day and tidy up if some kid left it a mess before leaving. They aren't supposed to do that, but you know some parents."